


Carry Us to Shore

by MilenaDaniels



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anaphylaxis, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Death, Delusions, F/M, Foster Care, Grief/Mourning, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilenaDaniels/pseuds/MilenaDaniels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern!AU, Canon-Compliant (really!)</p><p>The loss of their child shatters the boundaries of her reality but that's not enough to break them apart.  This is a world where love is incontrovertible, and truth is subjective.  They've fought through time and odds to be together, and they'll stay that way as long as one of them is able to keep fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry Us to Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Because my aim was to achieve a minimalistic, mood-driven story, I've refrained from diving into an excess of research (I still researched everything I needed but not down to the last detail like I usually do). Therefore, there might be a lot of details that don't add up for those more in the know, and for that I apologize.
> 
> This story was beta'd by [Stef](http://scifi-tv-addict.livejournal.com). I don't think I've harassed her this much over a project since my early days of vidding. She is a saint, an actual saint, and this fic would have been shit without her help.
> 
> Finally, there is a music video in the works that will hopefully be done in the next week or two. When it's up, I'll add the link here! Or maybe I'll add it as another chapter if that helps anyone who'd like to subscribe.

 

Walking into their home afterwards was surreal.  It didn't feel like it belonged to them anymore. 

That was their furniture; they'd picked out that wall colour (his wife had convinced him that purple was a perfectly normal colour for a living room), but this wasn't where they lived anymore.  

Peter wondered if they still lived at all anymore.  If they were alive, that is, or if they should be... 

And then he ran from those thoughts because the alternative to living wasn't a disagreeable enough option to him at the moment.

Peter took his wife's coat and hung it with his in the closet, but did so quickly when he saw her turn left towards the kitchen.  He followed her with his eyes, but three steps from the doorway, she remembered.

He waited, hoping she'd just move away, but she didn't. 

Peter bit down on the crushing wave of anguish that threatened to drown them both and gently took her arm.  "Come on, love." 

He ordered in, but the food went cold on the living room table.

 

* * *

 

If there was one blessing to accompany grief, it was the overwhelming fatigue that made it easier to push through horrible memories and reach the sweet black of nothingness.  Unfortunately, he'd been conditioned to sleeping lightly for the past three years, which meant he was awake the second her foot stepped on the creaky spot right outside their door. 

He thought about leaving her be, just letting her deal in her own way.  He was tired, he deserved a rest too.  But then he caught the soft notes of a lullaby and he couldn't brace himself against the invisible force that pounded sickeningly into his chest.  The tears burst from him as violently as his breath had and, for a few panicked and disorienting minutes, he remembered what it was to fear death. 

The lullaby stopped, and the tears did too eventually, concern slowly overpowering loss.

He found her in their rocking chair, cradling an empty blanket.

 

* * *

 

They'd met in the system when she was eight and he was ten - they'd been pseudo-siblings for four months, a fact they liked to pretend was more meaningful than it had been to creep out new friends.  There had been a younger boy as well, though Peter couldn't remember his name now.  He was the first one either had personally known to actually be adopted. 

He'd left, given to a family to keep, and they'd shared a fleeting hope together about a family that found each other, stayed together, and could never be broken up. 

It had happened for that boy, he had been found.  It _could_ happen. 

They were split up two months later.

 

* * *

_I can guide you._

_You're not gonna guide us anywhere until you tell us who you really are._

* * *

Peter remembers reading stories about grief, about mourning.  About how mornings were the worst. How your subconscious would think everything was okay and then consciousness, in all its cruelty, would remind you of exactly how wrong the world was.  Peter couldn't remember if those stories featured a man waking up with his wife missing from the space beside him. 

She never woke before him, not even now. 

Staying stock still, Peter held his breath and listened. 

After a count of ten, his frantically beating heart forced his lungs and legs into action.  Their house was a two-story but it wasn't large, and she wasn't in it.

When she called, asking him to remind her, as always, what brand of yogurt he preferred, he forced the tremble out of his voice and told her any kind with fruits. 

Half an hour later, he helped her bring the bags of groceries inside, and when she turned left towards the kitchen, he waited.  He waited, to see what would happen, what she would do, and then cursed himself for his curiousity when the bag slipped from her slack fingers and crashed to the ground. 

As the yogurt spilled across their hardwood floor and into her socks, he wanted to yell at her.  He wanted to scream in her face.  He wanted to throw things at her and shake her until she woke up enough to _scream right back_.    

Instead, Peter moved her out of the puddle of plain yogurt.

"They only had apples." She apologized as he gently took off her right sock.

"Apples?"

"The yogurt.  They weren't well stocked, all they had was plain and the four packs where a quarter of them are apple." Her eyes were unfocused, but her face projected concern.  "I don't want apples in the house.  Regina can't-"

"Regina?" He whispered, trying to catch her eye.  He needn't have bothered.  She swung around, her eyes pointing into a questioning glare at his echo, as if he'd been the one to say it first. 

Later, he hid the car keys in the basement and tried not to feel ashamed about it.  The remaining groceries he threw out.

 

* * *

_Emma, look at me._

_I can't take the chance I'm wrong about you._

* * *

 

Two days later, he was no longer ashamed about hiding the keys.

Two days later, he was grateful.

Two days later, he woke up just as his wife finished tying his second wrist to the headboard.  For an awful minute, he was grinning.  And then she was off him with a look of fear on her face, the circles under her wide eyes more pronounced than they'd been since 3 a.m. feedings.

"Wha-"

"Where's Henry?" She demanded through clenched teeth.  She held a pair of scissors in her hand and, irrationally, he was angry that it wasn't a kitchen knife.

"Where is he?" She yelled, shoving the metal tips under his throat.

"I don't know any Henry, love." He said softly, trying to shift in his restraints without her noticing.

"Don't lie to me.  I know you're working with her." She menaced.  When he swallowed, the scissor points dug into his Adam's apple.

"Who?  Regina?"

By her look of suspicious confusion, he'd guessed wrong.  But he was grateful for his error when she shook her head slowly, as if she was puzzling something out.   When she finally stopped and looked at him again, it was as though she'd simply walked in on this uncomfortable scene instead of having created it herself. 

He called her name, hoping to break through the haze and reach her, but she ignored him and walked calmly out of the room. 

When he heard the creaking of the wooden stairs under her feet, he started yelling her name. 

By the time the front door opened and closed, he'd been screaming it with enough force that he'd be suffering from mild laryngitis for a few days after.  A neighbour would have heard it had they been outside, or had their windows been open, but no one came. 

It was nearly twenty minutes after she'd left, and more than a dozen panicked, frustrated tears crawling through his morning stubble before he'd gotten a hand free.  He never felt so young and helpless as he did dialing 911 from their bedside phone.  And he'd never felt the guilt of committing such betrayal as when he'd told an unconcerned operator that the adult who'd gone missing had restrained him against his will and could be a danger to herself and others.

When men in uniforms knocked on his door, his wife in tow, Peter had the surreal feeling that he was watching the scene unfold ten years ago, with a foster parent in his place and him standing morosely between the officers.  He added it to his list of guilt and sins.

The officers were courteous, professional, and full of pity when they handed him a card with an intimidating number of acronyms on it.  He thanked them and they left.

"I'm sorry," she said when he sat next to her on the couch, confusion still clinging to her like cobwebs.  "I thought-"

She screwed her eyes shut.

"What did you think?"

She didn't open her eyes, her brow furrowed as though it was a fight to find an answer.  "I thought you were working for her.  I thought she was going to hurt him."

Peter wanted to say he'd never hurt him, that he'd never hurt her either.  He wanted to know what she was afraid of, what he could do to help her.  But that was a self-evident answer.

He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead and memorized the number on the card.

 

* * *

 

They'd met again in high school.  They weren't in the same family this time but they were in the same school zone.   Having only had four months together as children, they shouldn't have had the connection they did, but they considered themselves blessed for it.  Bouncing (or being bounced) from house to house, family to family, you got to know a lot more people than the average person did.  But it wasn't that often that you got to know them twice. 

On the first day back after the winter break, blue eyes had met in the cafeteria and temporary friendships had been abandoned in favour of the past.  And from that past had come the future. 

They'd had an entire school year this time before fate intervened again (Peter graduated) but they weren't children anymore.  They weren't at the mercy of adults who had bigger priorities than them, like money and convenience.  They were mostly independent now, and they fought to stay together. 

Peter bought a car and drove her to school every day of her senior year.  He would have picked her up after school as well but he was working two jobs plus another on contract so that they could start their lives together when she graduated. 

They got married two hours after her graduation ceremony and they drank (illegally) in the name of that boy who'd given them hope all those years ago, who'd let them truly believe in family.  Because this was it.  This was never having to be separated again. 

 

* * *

_Who's Milah?  On the tattoo?_

_Someone from long ago._

_Where is she?_

_She's gone._

* * *

 

"Any history of mental illness in the family?" The owner of acronyms asked.

Peter shifted in his chair and stopped immediately.  It was wooden and it creaked ominously whenever he moved.  He instinctively disliked a place that still had wooden chairs in the new millennium.

"Not that we know of, we were both foster kids.  Didn't know our families."

"Any substance abuse problem?  Alcohol or drugs?"

"No."

"Is she on any medication?"

"No, just multivitamins."

"Did she exhibit any signs of postpartum depression?"

Did this count?

 

* * *

 

They had planned on having at least ten kids and then adopting at least twenty more throughout the years.  That had been their reasonable, responsible adult plan before they'd even been on their fourth date.

Seven years later, they were still a duo in their small apartment and neither had been able to articulate why exactly. 

They had decided that maybe they should leave it up to fate.  But fate was working against birth control pills and the fastidious use of condoms, and eventually they knew they had to renegotiate their strategies, or rather, their philosophies.

They realized that wanting to spread love and safety to children didn't necessarily mean that two kids from the system had the tools with which to do that; it was a fear they'd secretly held onto for years.  They had talked about the future, about the brightness of it, the joy, the laughter, the pure goodness that would come from bringing children into their lives.  But they had rarely touched upon the bad, the fears, the dangers, the potential of repeating the pasts they'd had to endure. 

Realizing that had been a blow...but strangely, it was one they took pride in.  Millions of people had children every day without realizing they weren't fit to raise them (they knew that from experience).  But they weren't among those millions.  They had gotten married young but not foolishly.  They had built their lives together with purpose and meaning, trusting one another to balance reckless passion with careful comfort.  And while they did get in each other's faces about how to set the table like a civilized person and what channels they should get on satellite, they'd weathered the storms that shattered most couples (old and young) against the rocks. 

They'd done that.  On their own, with each other, for each other. 

They threw the birth control pills out the next day. 

The condoms they kept.  Peter poked holes in two of them and filled them with water to squirt at her.  She used half of hers as full water balloons in retaliation, and the rest Peter found unwrapped in random places at random intervals.  Two years after the fact, she was still laughing about the one that had fallen out of his jacket while in line at the corner store.  It had fallen to the floor with a wet smack (it was lubricated) and just the memory of that sound and of poor old Mrs. Lee's face behind the counter sufficed to get her red-faced from laughter.  

It was a memory she cherished so much that Peter had caught her throwing a new pack of lubricated condoms on the floor of their new kitchen just to see their son laugh. 

It worked every time.

 

* * *

 

"How is she doing?" Peter asked the head nurse as he signed in.

She pulled a sympathetic smile out of a grimace and told him the doctor would see him shortly.  That answered that.  He'd been to visit three times a week since she'd been admitted almost a month ago.  Courtesy of extended bereavement leave, he would have come every single day from the start to the end of visiting hours. But, as a nurse had told him, mental health was like weight loss, if you stepped on the scale every day, you'd only be hurting yourself when the numbers didn't improve every single time.  If you spaced it out, you'd be more much likely to feel a general, positive trend.

He'd wanted to kindly ask her not to compare his wife's psychotic break to needing to shed a few holiday pounds but he was a gentleman and she was on a much bigger weight loss journey than that. 

Still, he'd seen the wisdom in her advice when he'd come in to find the love of his life lucid and cheerful on a Monday, and having intense conversations with the space at the foot of her bed on the Tuesday. 

In reality, it was a lose-lose situation.  Either he got his hopes up only to be dashed on a daily basis, or he retreated to an achingly empty house to waste away on his own.

The doctor called him in minutes later.

"She's not getting better." Peter surmised as he sat down on the old, wooden chair.

"This type of therapy didn't agree with her.  We just have to find the right fit."

"No more pills?" His wife had had fewer conversations with empty rooms in the past week, but she'd also been nearly comatose and completely unresponsive.

"Not for the time being.  We're going to try to break through on her terms." The doctor paused. "How much do you know about the world she's created?"

Nothing of consequence.  He worried that that made him an uncaring husband.

"She's created biological parents." Unsurprising.  "She also has a son there.  Your son, I imagine." 

He let himself indulge in the image of his wife and child happy together, but distantly heard himself ask, "am I there?"

"The boy, Henry," it sounded familiar, but that wasn't their son's name, "has a father but he's been removed."

"Removed."

"What concerns us is that your wife doesn't appear to have been the one to make Henry's father leave, the world did.  _It_ intervened.  It's the reason we're taking her off the drugs earlier than planned.  We feel decreasing her awareness may have transferred some of her autonomy over to the world she's built."

What the hell did that even mean?

"But the world has introduced another character, against her intent.  His name is Hook, and I believe he is her representation of you."

"Hook?  As in _Captain_ Hook?"

"Yes.  She seems to run into him on her quests quite frequently as of late. Eventually, she immobilizes him or gets away, but he always follows her."

The Doctor gave him a moment to digest, and nothing was heard in the office but the constant buzz of the air conditioner and the creaking of his chair.  

"So, in my wife's perfect world, I'm a villain.  Like the evil queen."

"Not villain, per se.  Hook hasn't done anything to harm her or her created family yet.  She doesn't know what to think.  Like I said, the world created him, not her.  And I personally am of the opinion that it's because she knows you're fighting for her in the real world.  Hook is tenacious, he's clever, and he is the one character at the moment who manages to rattle her emotionally.  She knows you're trying to reach her.  She may not be able to outwardly show it, but she feels it." 

Peter nodded, wishing that reassured him.

The doctor continued, "Regina, I believe, was created out of an intense internalization of guilt.  On the one hand, she provides the dark balance to your wife's happiness in this other world; we are much more prone to believe we're entitled to happiness when someone is actively trying to take it away.  And on the other hand, being a villain who nonetheless cares for the boy, Henry, Regina is the perfect way for your wife to relive what happened to your son, from a distance."

The doctor went on about his wife's creativity; the blending of real life and fairy tales, but all Peter could think about was that he finally understood why she'd bought the plain yogurt.

 

* * *

_You would've done the same._

_Actually, no._

* * *

 

Their son had come from love, but not from the best of genes.  His mother was nearsighted and his father had a plethora of minor but persistent food allergies.  It had made young Peter quite popular with new foster homes.

When their son turned one and their pediatrician told them they'd have to be careful with the introduction of foods, his wife had scoffed at the idea that they'd be putting any foreign elements in their child's body without medical supervision.  When he turned two and the same dialogue had taken place regarding nuts, their doctor had been amused until she pulled the small, unopened jar of Skippy in his office and told their boy to open wide.  They'd then refused to leave the waiting room (though no one had asked them to) until they were sure he'd be fine.  A half hour later, pink cheeks became purple and the doctor had called them back in. 

His wife had been a rock, already planning to decontaminate their home of any offensive nut-related foods.  He thought it was unfair - as the one who'd suffered from food allergies his entire life, he should have been the one so stoic and composed in the face of so pervasive a threat. 

The last thing their pediatrician had said before the topic of allergies had been closed for good was, "I wouldn't worry, you guys.  If you're careful about your food and contact with others, I don't expect you'll ever need to use the EpiPen.  Always keep one stocked anyway, but with all of this on your side, there's practically no chance of anything bad ever happening, okay?  So don't worry.  He's going to be fine."

Neither Peter nor his wife had missed that "practically".  In the car, they'd shaken their heads and lamented the medical profession's cowardice in the face of potential lawsuits.

A few months later, their son had finally sailed past the edge of the Terrible Twos, into the calmer seas of toddlerhood, and they had begun toying with the idea of getting back on track with their plans of repopulating a small neighbourhood (at least).

They'd toyed, they'd decided, and then they'd gotten to practicing.  They would be ditching the pills at the end of the current pack, and they'd both started secretly hoarding the remaining condoms without the other knowing. 

It was in this spirit of reproductive productivity, on a thawing Monday morning, that his wife had been struck with a nostalgic pregnancy craving.  One two-hour round trip later (allotting time to properly bundle up a toddler who had woken up with some sniffles), his wife and son had returned from a valiant quest to their favourite restaurant downtown with their prize: the world's best chili.  Not the city's best, not the country's best.  The world's best.  Peter only thanked God that the restaurant was, in fact, within their city limits given that he'd been the one trekking out at least three times a week (often at night) when pregnancy cravings called.

They sat at the kitchenette, and his wife watched eagerly as their son took a spoonful.   When he made a face and dropped the spoon, she seriously considered disowning him then and there.  But, with a only dramatic sigh for his benefit, she got up and made him his favourite assortment of meats and vegetables.  She then pulled his bowl of chili towards her own and feasted on both.

As she started on the dishes afterwards, she could hear tiny feet striking the hardwood floor loudly in the other room.  Wistfully, she imagined there being a second set of tiny feet dancing around with him, but she shook herself out of her daydream.

"Don't run around the house when I'm not there, buddy." She called out, turning the tap off and listening.  The little feet jumped twice more.

"What did I say, kiddo?" She called out again, adding a higher degree of Mom Is Law into her tone.

When the feet tiptoed not-so-quietly back to the couch, she turned the water back on.  "I'm just gonna finish up here and then we can go to the park, okay?  Draw something pretty for Daddy in the meantime."

She heard what sounded like a "'kay" as she returned to her sudsy sink but kept an ear open in case it had been a cough.  Five minutes later, she found her son bent over his paper, a blue crayon in hand. 

"Whatcha drawin?" She said, kneeling next to him and ruffling his hair.

"A boat." Boats and suns were his specialties.  This boat was a little shaky though.  And the bowl of apple wedges she’d given him for dessert had barely been touched.

"You feeling okay, kiddo?" She asked, placing a hand on his forehead. It was a little warm, and his cheeks were a bit red. 

Her son did a loose version of a shrug and kept drawing, but a small cough betrayed him. 

"I'm gonna go get the thermometer, okay?  You keep drawing, Daddy's gonna love that."  He coughed once more before she was all the way up the stairs and she shouted down, "Get your sippy and take a drink, okay? It's just on the kitchen table, you can reach it."

She quickly dove into their medicine cabinet and located not only the thermometer but also the Children's Tylenol.  Before she closed the mirrored door, she caught sight of her packet of birth control pills.  With a fond smile, she picked it up and threw it in the trash before bounding back down the stairs. 

Finding the living room still empty, she continued on to the kitchen where she caught the sight of her son and was struck with such incomprehension that not a single sound could escape her.  His tiny body was nearly motionless on the floor, his lips and eyelids swelling as she watched. She violently threw aside what she'd been carrying and ran for the first floor's EpiPen. 

Not daring to look at his little face again, she yanked his pants down and stuck her child’s thigh with the needle while her free hand massaged his chest.  She didn't realize she'd been crying until she said, "breathe, _breathe_ ," and it came out gurgled. 

" _BREATHE_." She yelled this time, trying to command every element of parental authority, as if she could order him back to health. He bravely gave out a wheeze but could manage nothing better, especially through his own terrified tears.

She didn't know if the ten seconds required for the EpiPen to work had passed or not so she counted another five while reaching for the phone.  While it rang, she pulled the needle out and immediately started massaging the skin around the puncture wound.

Later, she wouldn't be able to remember how long she'd been on the phone, or if she'd said anything intelligent.  She remembered trying to compose herself as she begged for help, and letting the phone drop from her shoulder when their son’s wheezing stopped.  That sudden silence, she remembered, became a physical pain she’d never shake.

Peter had been called home by the police.

There had been an ambulance and a patrol car on the street in from of his house, and the front door had been leaning against the outside wall.  They had had to kick it in when his wife didn't answer the door. 

In his kitchen, on the floor, resting against cupboards, had been his wife and the body of his three year old son, his normally jovial face swollen beyond what Peter could recognize, hers just as red and streaked with tears.

He could never remember what happened afterwards either.  His first real memory after finding them came a few days later when, black-clad and unseeing, unfeeling, the pediatrician's words had come back to him. 

"Practically", he had said.

That word hadn't been a precaution against litigation.  It had been added to account for the restaurant downtown that made the very best chili in the world, with peanuts as a thickener. 

It was _chili_.

They'd never thought to ask.

Their son hadn't even liked it.

 

* * *

_You might want to quit._

_Why would I do that, when I'm winning?_

* * *

 

"Hey, beautiful."  He crooned softly, like he used to. 

She had lost some weight.  It was hard to feed someone who spent most of their waking hours lost in their own mind.  He had lost some weight himself.  Between the kitchen being off-limits and the lack of appetite he experienced whenever he was actually in the house... 

She didn't reply to his greeting.  She rarely did anymore, to him at least.  For her, Peter was gone.  He was “Hook” whether he was in her head or out, and he wasn't welcome.  Hook was the reason she wasn't in _her_ world with her son - because if you're going to create an imaginary world in which to live out the rest of your days, why stop at one?

It was ironic, in a way.  Both of them had lost their son, and now both of them had lost their spouse.  Both of them lived alone, apart from each other, and yet only one of them seemed to be suffering for it. 

It was ironic. 

Some days he hated her.  It was her fault that he had to walk into their house, with a door so new it clashed against the rest of the facade.  She had lost her mind and he was the one who had to walk through their hallways, littered with pictures of a smiling baby, a smiling toddler, and a smiling family.  She was the one who had checked out from reality and he was the one who had to walk up creaky stairs, walk past a door that would never be opened again, and into their room, alone. 

At least when she'd physically been there, he had had to pretend he was alright.  Now, there was no reason to.

But when he came to visit, twice a week, he found he couldn't hold onto that nebulous hatred.  He couldn't look at his wife, in loose pajamas that seemed to grow larger every time he came, and tell her that if she was leaving, which she clearly was, she was taking him with her, whether either of them wanted it or not.

He sat, as he always did, in his chair near the door and watched her look out the window.  He had a feeling she wasn't appreciating the view. 

This was how they spent most of his visits.  Him, silent, her, silent or mumbling in conversations he wasn't privy to, the clock mounted behind wire meshing ticking away on the wall. 

"Do you remember when we first met?" He asked, pausing afterwards but not expecting an answer.  "Remember we were placed with that couple in the duplex?  They had those deep purple carpets – on purpose."

Whether she heard, or remembered, she said nothing.

"There was a kid there, younger than us, a really sweet kid." He continued.  "And we were really happy when he got adopted.  That family he got was just...he was going to have a good life, his very best chance at it.  That's what we thought."

His fingernails picked at the imperfections in the small side table.

"Do you ever wonder why we weren't more bitter?  I mean, we already knew we were past the age of most adoptions, that we would probably be stuck going from house to house for the rest of our lives.  But we were so happy for him."

The clock ticked away; the seconds sounding slightly shorter than they should.

"I think that maybe...maybe it was that they just took to each other so easily.  It wasn't like they were adopting him, it was as though they were his real parents, just coming to pick him up. When he left with them, somehow it wasn't a question of 'would someone ever love us that way?' anymore.  We understood then that our family was out there, that we were just waiting to find them, or for them to find us.

"And that's what we became, too, isn't it?  That's how we knew we were family, because we kept finding each other.  It shouldn't have been possible, but we did and we held on - "

He cut himself off quickly and bit deeply into his cheek; her lips moved in silent conversations aimed beyond the window. 

"I've thought about him, you know?  That kid.  I always meant to ask you what his name was, I could never remember.  I think I would have looked him up if I'd known.  He was so young, he probably wouldn't have remembered us but... I don't know, something in me wanted to know he was doing alright.  That he grew up, went to school, got married and had all these...kids." He ended with a heavy sigh and a tired shrug.  "But I never remembered."

The next hour passed in silence, both of them being swept away by separate preoccupations.  The hour after that, however, began with a miracle. 

"Hook."

To hear her voice addressing him was enough to make his heart leap into his chest, the name be damned.

She was even looking straight at him, looking as lucid as ever, her eyes pleading. 

"Yes, love?" He returned, voice hushed with surprise and caution.

"I need to go home." She said.

"I want you to come home," he assured her quickly.  "I want you to come home."

"What?  To Neverland?" She asked impatiently.  "I need to go to _my_ home, I need to get back to Storybrooke.  I need to get back to my _son_."

His throat seemed to be closing in on itself. 

"To who?"

"Henry." She seemed pained just saying it and he wanted to tell her he understood the feeling.  "He's only eleven, and there's a lot of...chaos back home.  I need to be with him, I need to make sure he's okay."

"Eleven." Peter nodded with approval.  "That sounds like a good age.  Not too old to have missed too much, but not so young he can't take care of himself."

She sent him a cool, questioning glance but nodded. "I guess."

It felt like racing time itself to be questioning her in this brief, inexplicable period of clarity.  He knew it would be fleeting, he knew it would end. 

"And in Storybrooke, you've...you've got your family, then." He continued. "Your mum, dad, the whole kit."

"Yeah?  I guess.  It's complicated.  Why the sudden interest?"

"Just a concerned friend, I suppose."

"We're friends now?  News to me." Her lips curled in a way he hadn't seen since her high school days, when she'd needed to be tough all the time.

"I'd like to be." He told her honestly. 

Her eyes shone with confusion but it wasn't due to his answer; his window of opportunity was closing.

"Suppose I offer you a deal." He said, walking over to the bed, ignoring the way she shifted away.  He tried to keep a neutral expression, rather than that of a man losing his wife before his eyes.

"What kind of deal?"

"The kind where I help you get back to Storybrooke." He said plainly, easily, as though bile wasn’t rising in his throat.

"You're working with Cora." She accused. 

Peter forced a shrug.  "I don't owe her my loyalty."

"What's the catch?" 

"The catch is you have to convince me that you're happier there than you are here." Her eyes widened but stayed locked on his.

"What?"

"Are you happy there? I mean _truly_ happy?" He pressed, needing to know, needing to hear it for himself.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" She asked, baffled. "My _son_ is there, my _life_ is there, my family, my new job, my new friends.  Everyone I love is there, of course I'm happier there."

He turned away from the bed, an ache in his chest so terrifyingly painful.  He was surprised - not with her answer but with his reaction to it.  He'd honestly thought himself soulless, devoid of any ability to care anymore.  He'd been very wrong.

By the time he'd turned back to face her, her eyes were hooded again, the other world was calling her back.  He forced the weight in his chest to settle like cement, like always, and propped himself against the chair he'd vacated, waiting.  This could be it.  This could be her choosing, once and for all.    

There was silence for a long while as she was invisibly pulled in opposite directions.  But soon after, he heard her start to cry, and he didn't blame her. 

In fact, he joined her when she said, "Peter."

This time he didn't turn away.  This was his _wife_ ; she'd seen him in much worse conditions.  He went to her and took her hand in his, wiping the tears off her cheek with the other.

"I'm here, love." He placed a kiss on her brow and the tears came harder when she didn't push him away.  "I love you."

"Peter, I don't wanna be here." She said, her body jerking as she tried to suppress full sobs.

"I know, love."

"I'm sorry."

Peter laughed and shook his head.  "Don't be, sweetheart, I don't want to be here either."

"Can I go?" She asked, her voice impossibly small. "Please, can I go?"

And there it was - worse than he could have imagined.  He could have released the woman with his wife’s face.  He could have bid her farewell and good luck with her family, her son and - a selfish part of him hoped - with Hook.  But this wasn’t that stranger.  This was the little girl he’d played with on purple carpets.  This was the young woman he’d grown into adulthood with.  This was the mother of his child.  This was the love of his life. This was _his wife_ , begging him to let her go.  And he couldn’t.

"Please, Peter." She whispered, tears gliding gently down her thinning cheeks.

"I can't come with you." He finally begged right back, choking on his words. "I can't go there.  I can't follow you.  Please."

Her eyes closed, her dark lashes releasing a brimful of fresh tears.  Her hand rose to run fingers through his hair and he leaned into it.

" _He's_ _there_." She said when she opened her eyes again, and in those words he heard the apology he'd never wanted uttered.  The unspoken remorse of a mother who would do anything to be with her child, even at the cost of her husband.

" _Please_."

Peter looked into her eyes, blue like his, bloodshot like his, and far too weary for this world, like his.  He looked into her eyes, pressed a kiss to her hand, on the spot where her wedding band used to be, and knew this would be the last time he ever saw his wife.

 "Okay.” He finally said, lips numb.  “Yes, love, you can go."

He didn't know what he'd expected, maybe instant catatonia.  Instead, her left hand tightened around his and her right one pulled his head down for a kiss.  He'd never been more grateful in his life.

"I love you," she said, as solemnly as she had on their wedding day, as she released him.    

Peter screwed his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing.  By the time he opened them again, his was the only hand hanging on.  Her eyes were blank; he quickly held his breath, as if life could be paused and possibly rewound, but nothing happened but the onward ticking of the clock on the wall.

 

* * *

 

When Peter walked up to his front porch, he realized he didn't know how he'd gotten there.  Unbothered, he climbed the few stairs. 

He opened his new front door, and for once it didn't bother him.  He got a glass of water from the kitchen.  It tasted strange.  He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table. 

From the hallway, he picked his favourite family photograph and tucked it under his arm. 

On the stairs, he took care to step around the creaks, and did the same outside their bedroom door.  

The picture went on his nightstand.  The chair went at the foot of the bed.

As he stood upon it, the chair creaked beneath him. 

He looked down and started laughing, softly at first and then uncontrollably. 

He'd never realized they'd owned old wooden chairs. 

With a sigh born of a good laugh, he looked to his family picture, slipped the noose under his chin, and wasted no time in kicking away the chair.

His neck didn't snap, but the rope held fast. 

In what he thought was an odd moment of peace, his body swung away from the picture and towards the window.  He thought he could see two bright lights in the darkness.  They were growing bigger and bigger, the longer he looked. 

 _Better aim for the left,_ he thought, _just in case_.

 

* * *

_Hey, beautiful._

* * *

 

Hook was resting his eyes - never fully sleeping, not in this place - when he heard the glass door open.  The steps were measured, unhurried, so it wouldn't be the Dark One finally coming to exact revenge, yet not a nurse or doctor either.  This gait was much too hesitant.  When the visitor was only a few feet away, he made a show of groggily waking up, while tensing his muscles for the possibility of having to defend himself.

"Hook," Emma - not an unwelcome sight - greeted, "how are you feeling?"

"Hard to say," he leered from the bed, "you may have to check me over yourself."

"You keep this up and I'm gonna start to think you're single-handedly responsible for all the bad dialogue in porn." She said, crossing her arms as she stood over him in his hospital bed.

"I have no idea what that means, but as long as you're thinking of me." He winked, and then winced when it pulled at a laceration near his temple.

"See what happens?" Emma chastised him with a satisfied smirk.

"So, listen," she began slowly, uncomfortably, even more so when Hook perked up.  "You know about the curse being what brought everyone to this world, right?  And how I kind of broke it and it was foretold, and everything?"

She was very flippant for a supposed saviour, he liked that about her.

"Well it was all written down in this book, my kid's storybook."

"A storybook in Storybrooke, charming." Hook deadpanned.  Emma glared at him.

"Long story short, he's kind of been wanting to meet you.  I mean not just you specifically.  He doesn't idolize you or anything, I mean he's not even that into pirates.  And wow that could sound so wrong." Hook grinned at her as she became flustered.

"It's alright, love, it's perfectly natural to want to meet a living legend, such as myself." He assured her, settling into his pillow none too smugly.

"You're a myth at best, not exactly a legend.  And you keep getting the crap beat out of you so even the 'living' part of that is a little tenuous at best." She said, clearly regretting having come for this at all. "And don't call me 'love'."

Hook held his good hand up as a peace sign, and graciously allowed her to continue.

"Point is, he wants to meet you, unimpressive though you are in this hospital bed.  Ah!" She warned, finger up and ready to scold, when she saw him ready with a retort (no doubt about his state of impressiveness in beds).  "That's what I'm asking you to stop.  For five minutes, can you just behave like the gentleman you claim to be? Say hi to the kid and then we'll be off?"

In a display that surprised her, Hook's face relaxed into something less aggressive and more benevolent.  Her's was no doubt still warped by suspicion, but she appreciated the attempt.

"I promise to behave for the boy.  Send him in." He seemed genuine enough, and he wasn't pinging her lie-dar.

She begrudgingly nodded her thanks, and left for the waiting room.  When she returned, it was with a boy of ten or so, who, by his dark hair must have taken more after his father.  He carried what must have been his storybook with him.

"Henry, this is Captain Hook; Hook, Henry." There was a hint of warning in Emma's tone by the end of the introductions, and Hook had taken note. 

"Hello, Henry." He said, putting his hand out to shake (slowly, so as to not put the boy's mother on needless alert).  The name sounded familiar.  "I hear you've been wanting to meet me."

"Well, I really wanted to meet Peter Pan." Emma tried to cover her laugh with her hand, but she failed.  "But you've been to Neverland, too.  Of all the worlds I'd like to go to, that's my number one!"

"Aye, I've been to Neverland.  Twice, as a matter of fact."

"Is it true you never grow up there? I mean, I know it's true, but I mean _really_ true?"

"Aye." Hook said, his voice bending into a conspiratorial tone.  "The last time I was there, it was for three hundred years, and didn’t age a day."

Both Henry and his mother looked skeptical, so he added, "On my word as a gentleman."  Neither was satisfied.

"Is Peter there now?  With the lost boys?" Henry chattered on excitedly.

"Who knows where Peter is, but aye, the lost boys are still there.  Most of them anyway.”  Hook shared a look with Emma over the boy's head.  "You know, there was a Henry among them once.”

"Really?" The boy asked.

"It's the honest truth." Hook continued.  "He’s not there anymore, though."

"Yeah," Emma surprised them by agreeing, "I remember that."

"You do?" Henry asked, his eyes passing between the adults, hoping for a clue.

"Yeah," Emma shrugged, "I mean, it’s in the book, right?"

"I don't think so..." Henry had read that book cover to cover; he would have remembered a lost boy with his name.

"Well then from someplace else." Emma dismissed easily. "He was a lost boy a long time ago, but then he was found.  His family found him."

"And it gave hope to the rest of them." Hook finished. “That it could happen.”

"Because it happened for him." Emma nodded, a small and mystified smile on her lips as if she’d vaguely touched upon a set of memories she hadn’t realized she’d forgotten. 

Hook nodded back and sank back into his pillows.

Yes, it had happened for that boy, Henry. _Thank God_ he finally remembered his name. 

 

* * *

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> I am/was extremely nervous to post this, so I'm so glad it's done now. I hope you enjoyed it! I am in love with comments (or kudoses) so if you feel inclined to leave any, please feel free to. I will be grateful forever!
> 
> I am also [on Tumblr](http://milenadaniels.tumblr.com).


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